The Cleveland Cavaliers outperformed everyone's expectations during a blistering start that saw them near the top of the Eastern Conference standings and rookie Evan Mobley as the odds-on favorite to win the Rookie of the Year Award. Recently though, they've fallen on harder times with six of their top eight scorers, including four of their opening day starters and the aforementioned Mobley, missing time with injury. During the recording of this episode, we received even more bad news for the Cavs, that fourth-year guard Collin Sexton would be undergoing season-ending surgery on his torn meniscus. We brought on Zach Weiss, host of the Across the Cavs podcast, for this episode to help us weigh the good and the bad for Cleveland so far this season and provide his insight on where this young team can go from here.

3:35-4:02: “It’s clear they made the right decision to draft Evan Mobley and to pay Jarrett Allen. I think they can very much coexist. … Yes, [Mobley]’s hurt right now. He’ll be back. … When [Lauri] Markkanen, who should be back very, very soon, once they’re all together again, that three-7-footer lineup, I think it’s special. You don’t see other teams even willing to try that.”

5:04-5:24: “It’s important to kinda be realistic and say that there’s no chance the Cavs will be a top-six team by the time the year’s over. And so that being said, I think it’s all about the play-in. It’s about just trying to win as much as you can. There’s no more draft picks they need. You can only have so many young guys.”

8:09-8:55: “It was the Knicks game for me that stood out for Mobley. He had 26, nine and five… But Mobley was smooth, he was hitting clutch 3s, he was getting all the rebounds. He was taking one dribble from the corner, beyond the arc, and getting right to the basket. When you look at his averages of 15, 8, 2.5 assists, a steal, 1.6 blocks, the assist, steal and blocks numbers are kinda like a young Giannis. And he’s not Giannis. He’ll never be Giannis. There’s only one Giannis. But impacting the game as a 20-year-old defensively is not something many players do. That alone is impressive. I think the shot is a lot better than we expected it to be at this point.”

14:16-14:42: “For [Collin Sexton]’s career, I think this is the best thing, but for the Cavs, this is a mega, mega issue because while he’s been out, they’ve really struggled to replace his value. [Ricky] Rubio as a starter has not quite been the same player as Rubio, the backup. They’re gonna have to sign somebody or do something if they really want to compete this year because Denzel Valentine is not that guy.”

24:53-25:15: Coming in last year when we drafted [Isaac Okoro], it was only a year ago. Remember how weird last year was? And he came in with these expectations – lockdown defender who will figure out his shot. Surprisingly, Deni Avdija of the Wizards is pretty much a slightly more developed Okoro, is what it looks like right now.”

31:10-31:31: “Once players get back and everyone can get a defined role again, I think we’ll understand what they have. But it’s gonna be six or seven weeks before we actually know good the Cavs are. Whatever their record is, whatever their rotation looks like, if everyone that’s on the roster now is still there, there’s a lot that we’re gonna learn about them with No. 2 [Sexton] not playing again this year.”

38:32-39:00: “I think [head coach J.B. Bickerstaff] trusts his team, which is a great sign; not all coaches do. That being said, the fact that he can count on the five guys on the court at a given time to fix their own mistakes means that they have a good off-court relationship that they can kinda have that unspoken trust. I think he’s gonna be a great coach. He will be the coach that gets them their next playoff series win. Whenever that is, it’s gonna be J.B.

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